Meaningful family-educator partnership is at the heart of everything we do.
While other programs claim to build family engagement into their structure, that engagement is often limited. Families might receive a newsletter or attend an event, but that’s where it stops.
The Family-Educator Learning Accelerator (FELA) is Springboard Collaborative’s structured methodology for accelerating learning through family-educator partnership. Schools, educators, families, and students come together to build relationships, establish shared goals, and create student support teams that fuel growth in just five to 10 weeks. Along the way, families build the knowledge, tools, and confidence needed to support learning beyond the classroom.
We’ve applied FELA across our academic programs over the years and across the country to see repeatable, scalable results. Unlock the power of family-educator partnership to accelerate student growth in your school or district!
The Beginning: Build the Team and Set Goals
Students succeed when teachers and families come together. That’s why FELA builds a support team that stays consistent inside and outside of school. Students take a baseline assessment to see where they are, and then teachers and families set growth goals. Everything that follows is built on this foundation.
The Middle: Practice, Practice, Practice!
During the cycle, the name of the game is practice. Students practice reading or math in small groups with teachers, through daily practice time at home, and independently.
Family Workshops also take place in the middle and provide a structured opportunity for teachers and families to come together. Designed as a connected series of learning experiences, these workshops help families build skills and confidence over time. At each workshop, teachers model instructional strategies, families practice those strategies with their children, and teams reflect on progress together, strengthening learning across school and home.
The End: Assess and Celebrate
At the end of the cycle, it’s important to measure again and see how far everyone has come. To measure growth, students take the same assessment they did before the program started. This helps students and families celebrate progress and provides teachers and schools with data to use in the months to come.
Then comes the celebration! We end each cycle with a celebration for every enrolled student. This is a key part of the program. Students have their wins acknowledged, serving as motivation for the future. It’s one of the reasons we see families report that they are still reading at home at least several days a week, six months after the program ends.
Why Families Love the FELA Methodology
Families want to play an active role in their children’s learning, and the FELA methodology gives them practical tools and strategies to do just that. By equipping families with skills and strategies to support literacy at home, families can actively participate and see the benefits of their engagement!
We can see that families leap at the chance to be involved. In districts that struggle to get 20% of parents to show up for report conferences, our weekly Family Workshops average 88% attendance from enrolled families.
In addition to being equipped to extend learning at home, families also build relationships with teachers and schools. This improved teamwork leads to better communication and sets students up for future success.